social media and experiential ambivalence社会媒体和经验的矛盾心理.pdf

Future Internet 2012, 4, 955-970; doi:10.3390/fi4040955 OPEN ACCESS future internet ISSN 1999-5903 /journal/futureinternet Article Social Media and Experiential Ambivalence Jenny L. Davis Department of Sociology, Texas AM University, 311 Academic Building, College Station, TX 77843-4351, USA; E-Mail: jdavis4@; Tel.: +1-979-845-5133 Received: 17 August 2012; in revised form: 7 October 2012 / Accepted: 22 October 2012 / Published: 26 October 2012 Abstract: At once fearful and dependent, hopeful and distrustful, our contemporary relationship with technology is highly ambivalent. Using experiential accounts from an ongoing Facebook-based qualitative study (N = 231), I both diagnose and articulate this ambivalence. I argue that technological ambivalence is rooted primarily in the deeply embedded moral prescription to lead a meaningful life, and a related uncertainty about the role of new technologies in the accomplishment of this task. On the one hand, technology offers the potential to augment or even enhance personal and public life. On the other hand, technology looms with the potential to supplant or replace real experience. I examine these polemic potentialities in the context of personal experiences, interpersonal relationships, and political activism. I conclude by arguing that the pervasive integration and non-optionality of technical systems amplifies utopian hope